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Kitty Calavita wins the LSA Kalven Award

Kitty Calavita, co-author of Appealing to Justice: Prisoner Grievances, Rights, and Carceral Logic, will receive the Law and Society Association’s Harry J. Kalven, Jr. Award at next week’s LSA Annual Meeting. The LSA recognizes a scholar’s body of work with The Harry J. Kalven, Jr. Award, based upon “empirical scholarship that has contributed most effectively to the advancement of research in law and society.”

“Quoting extensively from their interviews with prisoners and officials, the authors give voice to those who are almost never heard from.”

Kitty Calavita primarily receives this honor for her outstanding scholarship on immigration policy across multiple countries and time periods. The Kalven Award also recognizes her “subtle and valuable form of sociolegal exploration” in the pages of her latest book:

“Appealing to Justice is a rich account of prisoner appeals that shows how inmates make extensive use of their right to appeal even though they rarely achieve the outcomes they seek. Through creative analysis of the narratives of grievances, Calavita and Jenness give voice to prisoners and challenge much conventional wisdom on disputing.”

“As Calavita shows through a fine body of work, law as it is enforced on the ground is often the result of agents, agitators and structures that pull in conflicting directions – teaching us all that law marks conflict with contradiction.”

Visit the LSA’s website to read the official award announcement. This award will be presented at the LSA Annual Meeting Association Luncheon and Award Ceremony in Seattle on Saturday, May 30 at noon.

We’re honored to have published with Kitty Calavita, and we offer her our congratulations for an award well-deserved!